Friday, July 25, 2014

F.U.C.K.P.E.T.A.

I had to think about this for a little while and cool down. Look, I belong to Greenpeace. I support positive militant environmental action. I believe in the power of people to make themselves heard and educate others by action. I oppose animal cruelty and militantly, more than ever support small farmers and now my fight against Monsanto has taken on a personal aspect. But, more and more, I believe the elitist frivolous group PETA is diluting and destroying the credibility of how the actions of responsible groups are being perceived. Today, they crossed the line of arrogance and self involved egotism with theiroffer to pay the water bills of 10 poor Detroit residents if they would become "vegans"for one month.

Think about that. A rich wealthy elitist organization uses the human rights violation of the Detroit Water Cut offs as a propaganda tool to educate poor people in their concept of a healthy vegetarian diet. Most the PETA members probably have no idea of what it is like to live in an inner city poor neighborhood. They get their organic natural food from over priced markets in their wealthy communities. What PETA seems to miss in their vegan-as-a-bargaining-chip scheme is that it’s not easy for everyone to live on a healthy diet of fruits and vegetables like the kind PETA encourages. Some people — and especially lower-income residents like those in Detroit who are struggling to pay their bills — reside infood desertswhereit’s not easyto pick up fresh fruits and vegetables all the time. Or they simply work too many jobs and still don’t have enough money to have the time to prepare fresh, unprocessed foods. In 2012,18 millionfamilies in the U.S. were unable to get a sufficient amount of food to be healthy.

I think it is demeaning, hypocritical and insulting to the people of Detroit who are struggling to survive in a city that is engaged in the process of eliminationism as a solution to poverty. It makes me very mad that they have reduced poor Detroiters to the level of the cheap publicity stunts, making them another gimmicky photo opportunity as thewomen oftendepicted naked, covered in “blood,” and trapped in cages for PETA promotional materials and events.

2 comments:

Thank you! I managed and cooked for the only vegetarian restaurant in Toledo, Ohio in the early 70's, but I was never a real vegetarian. I have a diet now that is mostly vegetable based, but I am quite carnivorous! Most militant vegans seem to have a very skewed sense of priorities and most are fairly neurotic in their approach to food. As I said, they try to apply their privileged life style to the rest of the world. They have no idea of what it is like to try to buy food in the inner city of Detroit or the burden of the cost of what they consider healthy food would be to the people who struggle to feed their families and themselves. This was one of the most insulting, arrogant pointless things that PETA has done yet! Don't even get me started on their responsibility for the banning of foie gras in American cities because of the practices in some of the places it is produced. If you are going to ban foie gras because of the hyped sensationalized examples of cruelty to ducks and geese....? It hurts the small traditional producers more than the big eastern european producers they use as an example. I think PETA represents a very unhealthy mental attitude towards our relationship with food, the environment and farming in general. This is what causes food phobias I observe in American children. I am French and I will eat anything you put in front of me and appreciate it if it is good. I eat snails, crayfish, eels and lampreys and love it. Here a great recipe: Maletote de Lamproie...get a few lampreys and skin them...the skin is a little toxic. Then cut them up, put them in a pot with a bottle of red Bordeaux wine and a few squares of unsweetened dark chocolate, cover and let simmer for a few hours...unbelievable...I got this recipe from an 84 year old professional fisherman on the Dordogne River who caught tons of Lampreys in the Dordogne.

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About Me

Well, okay...I'm a Detroit boy transplanted to the wilds of rural France, hacking my way through the cultural underbrush.
I am an artist, I was a rock musician, professional chef and a railroad drawbridge operator. I'm just here to help.